


Save a Prayer

by vogue91



Category: Hey! Say! JUMP, Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Historical, Anal Sex, Angst, Character Death, Edo Period, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Soldiers, Suicide, Teacher-Student Relationship, Underage Character(s), War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 09:10:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14912555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: When Daiki thought about Ryosuke, he felt a tight vice around his heart.It wasn’t pleasant, or at least not how he would've liked it.He remembered the moment when the shogun Yoshiaki had entrusted him with his son’s education, he remembered how honoured he had felt for having received such an important task at such a young age.





	Save a Prayer

_“Arioka-san, Arioka-san!” the kid ran toward him with a cheerful expression on his face, smiling. “Arioka-san, my father told me I have to practice with the shinai for a little while longer. But you had promised me that you were going to teach me how to use the katana, right? Can't you go and tell him?”_

_Arioka laughed at the disappointed look on the younger’s face, and gestured him to keep still and calm down._

_“It’s true, I’ve said that, Ryosuke-sama.” he confirmed, raising a hand to shut him up, before the other could even begin to rejoice. “But if you remember, I also said that you weren’t going to be able to start your training before a few years. Your father is right, for now is better if we keep practicing with the shinai.” he said, trying not to laugh again at the look on his face._

_“Ah, but I'm tired of waiting!” he sighed, sitting on the floor and crossing his legs. “I can't wait to be older. When I’ll get to the right age, I want to become the best soldier of all. I’ll defeat all the enemies, and no one is going to dare to challenge the baifuku from the Ashikaga. You’re going to help me, aren't you, Arioka-san?”_

_There were so many things Daiki wished he could’ve explained to him._

_He wished he could’ve told him it wasn’t easy as it looked, that despite the appearances the shogun wasn’t indestructible, and that they lived in times where the rebellions were so  many that one couldn’t just hope to keep triumphing forever._

_He wished he could’ve told him that his ultimate goal couldn’t be to become the best soldier, if that ideal came with certain death._

_But he chose to keep quiet._

_Ryosuke was still too young, and being the son of the shogun there wasn’t going to be anything he could’ve said to take him away from a destiny that had already been laid out in front of him._

_He knelt, tenderly brushing a hand through his hair and smiling._

_“Of course I'm going to help you, Ryosuke-sama. Whatever happens, I’ll always be by your side.”_

When Daiki thought about Ryosuke, he felt a tight vice around his heart.

It wasn’t pleasant, or at least not how he would've liked it.

He remembered the moment when the shogun Yoshiaki had entrusted him with his son’s education, he remembered how honoured he had felt for having received such an important task at such a young age.

And he remembered how, during the next years, Ryosuke’s nature had managed to make him appreciate the task even more.

When he had grown things had changed in a way Arioka would've never expected, but he hadn't been able to do anything to prevent it, he hadn't been able to tell the younger how wrong and unhealthy the attraction they felt for each other was, and what they would've risked if the shogun had found out.

He hadn't kept it from him for some sort of respect, he had only because he was sure the younger knew already how wrong it was, and that he had simply chosen he didn’t care.

It had happened almost by chance, and one day Daiki had realized that Ryosuke hadn't been a kid in a long time, he had realized how beautiful he was, and how much he liked to spend time with him.

But it wasn’t just that, there were the looks the younger threw at him, the wish to believe he wanted him the same way, and the relief and the fear when he had ascertained that it was just like that.

Daiki bore in his mind every single detail of the first night he had spent with Ryosuke.

His skin, his lips, his flavour, his moans filling the room as if there was nothing else in the world but them...

He had felt so good that for a while he had even avoided thinking that all of this was going to bring them on the verge of the abyss.

He kept training him every day, aware of how they were running out of time, and taking him every night, knowing instead that had it been for him, those minutes and those hours would've never ended.

He knew that Ryosuke wasn’t destined to be by his side forever, but he allowed himself to believe just that, never letting the younger see in him any doubt or fear.

Ryosuke didn’t deserve it.

He deserved to have all his dreams come true, and Arioka knew he was an hindrance to some of them.

 

_“Ryosuke-sama?” he called him, smiling, while the younger hit his shoulder._

_“Stop calling me like that. It already makes me shiver when you do that  during the day, I won't stand it now.”_

_Daiki smiled to him, bowing his head a little, letting his arm slip around the other’s waist and pulling him closer._

_“Ryo.” he said then. “Better?”_

_He rushed to kiss his lips, allowing him no time to reply._

_There was something about kissing him that even after all this time he couldn’t explain, something that made him feel like he never wanted to stop, that he wanted to keep lying next to him forever, in that too small futon, where he pretended that keeping him close was only a way to fight the lack of room._

_Ryosuke let him kiss him, bringing his hands to his shoulder, slowly caressing him and sighing when he pulled away._

_“My father says that soon I’ll be ready to join the army, you know?” he murmured._

_He smiled, and he did because it was all he had ever desired, but there was a hint of sadness in his voice which was completely new to Daiki._

_But he knew where it came from, and he couldn’t help but feeling guilty about it._

_“Good. Then we should do our best until you’ll be completely ready, right?” he asked, pretending that the meaning of his words wasn’t important, pretending that they could still stay inside that room forever._

_He leant over him, kissing his naked shoulder, holding him tight against himself._

_He ignored the unhappy look on his face, because no matter how unprofessional his choice to be with him had been, he knew exactly how much their relationship crossed the boundary, and he knew he had no right to be in the way of Ryosuke and his destiny, and his place in the Ashikaga dynasty._

_He could just watch and he was going to, and he would've prayed every day for the gods to bring him back to him safe and sound once he would've finally be allowed to go into battle._

_Ryosuke wasn’t made for war, but no one seemed to care._

_It was just what he was born to be, was it or not in his nature._

The first time he had made it back, and Daiki had felt like his heart breaking in two halves for how happy he was to see him alive.

He spent all day inside the palace, thinking about him and what he was doing, thinking about how he must’ve felt, how he must’ve realized that the dream following him since he had been a child bore with it more than a nightmare.

Daiki remembered the pain of those days with such clarity that it almost hurt again, that anxiety almost came back to haunt him during the nights he spent without him by his side.

Thinking about it he clawed the palms of his hands, trying to lash out that frustration that now he was feeling again.

The one which had come back from battle wasn’t really his Ryosuke, but he had always deemed it as something unavoidable.

He was gloomier, quieter.

The smile had disappeared from his face for a few days, and Arioka had had to fight to make it come back, to make him open himself up about what was bothering him so much.

When Ryosuke had finally decided to talk, Daiki had had his suspicions confirmed.

Ryosuke had fun training with him, showing him how good he was with a katana.

It had been less fun on the field, using it to kill men, aware of how necessary it was to protect the baifuku and his father, but still with that incredulity given to the fact that until then he had never known much about war and what happened outside the palace’s walls.

He had let Daiki hold him and kiss him, and tell him that everything was going to be okay, because the only thing he needed after all the death he had been forced to witness, it was to feel alive with him.

Daiki remembered everything.

He remembered, and so much he would've liked to forget that scared look on his face, those confused eyes, and go back to moments where his familiar smile was the only thing on his face, the thing he had fallen in love with in the first place.

He had kept to himself once again how unfitted he was for that world, because talking would've meant asking him to give up on everything he had ever believed in, and then he would've felt so guilty that he wouldn’t have dared being by his side anymore, because he couldn’t ask him to give up for the sake of him and his mental sanity.

Ryosuke new that, and had never blamed him for it.

That was why Daiki had watched him leave the second time, and the third, and he had always lived in agony not knowing what was going on and had always rejoiced seeing him come back, treasuring every moment he was allowed next to him, while Ryosuke became more silent and serious, letting go only during those moments they stole from time and war together.

Daiki saw the precariousness of their situation, and he knew it wasn’t going to last forever.

But even if he wanted to, there wasn’t much he could do, save praying the gods to never take his Ryosuke away from him.

 

_Daiki pushed him against the futon, never tearing his lips off of him, sneaking a hand under the light fabric of the yukata, fast, feeling the need for him and his body devouring him._

_Ryosuke kept his eyes closed, clenched, and he tried to hold back every moan while he felt the elder’s hands moving quickly on him._

_Arioka tried to convince himself to stop, to ask him what was wrong and spend the night listening to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it._

_He wanted to feel him, right now, and he wanted him to feel him as well, to lash out in that ephemeral pleasure all the frustration and pain he felt, to forget for a few moments who he was and what he was forced to do._

_Daiki kissed every centimetre of his warm skin, taking the yukata off of him, allowing himself a moment to stare at his naked body, without lingering too much on the thought of how much he had missed it._

_He touched him, hungry, and searched him with his lips and his tongue and his teeth, managing to get those moans he seemed to need so much, going down his sternum, licking around his navel and following the line down his groin until he met his cock, wrapping his mouth around it in one movement, determined to deny him any time to react, to decide that the pain was greater than the desire, that he wanted to cry instead of screaming his name. That he wanted to consume his tears instead of his voice._

_He easily let his fingers slip inside of him, helping himself with his tongue, seeing him arch his hips toward him and feeling his craving grow, while all he could hear was his body screaming for him to take the boy underneath him, to make him his own, to feel him close like he wasn’t going to able to the next day._

_When he pushed inside, Ryosuke screamed; loud, not so much for the pain, as for the relief he finally felt in the other’s body, for that split second in which all he could think about was Daiki, feeling him inside, having him so close as to suffocate all the memories he had._

_Arioka brushed a hand over his face, more delicate this time, and leant down to kiss his lips before he started moving inside of him, trying to keep the urge in check and to make it last as long as possible._

_Ryosuke’s body was tight, warm, and he felt like he belonged there, that it was where he wished he could’ve spent the rest of his existence, forgetting about rules and forgetting who Ryosuke actually was._

_That was never going to change, after all, in the boy he loved._

_He moved fast, sinking inside of him and pulling back, meeting his hips like the other did with him, letting go to his moans in his ear, to his hands keeping him close, showing that desire that he had kept hidden until now._

_But Daiki knew him well, and he saw his need consuming in everything he did, and he saw his eyes relinquishing sadness instead of pleasure, melting as if they had become liquid all of a sudden, as if the colour in his irises had become alive again, back to the one it once was._

_He thrust faster, wrapping his hand around the younger’s erection, stroking it unevenly, but recognizing every sign of his face, going even faster until he saw him lose it and climax._

_He was beautiful. He was beautiful, and he would've spent hours looking at his features twisted by pleasure if he hadn't felt the urge to reduce himself just like that, so he rushed to move again, feeling the other’s body twitch around him, until he came as well, whispering Ryosuke’s name over and over again, in an endless chant._

_He let go next to him, his breath heavy and his eyes closed, as if once opened he was scared that all he was feeling was bound to disappear._

_“I want you to think about this, Ryosuke.” he told him after a few minutes, stretching his arm to pull him closer, letting him rest his head on his chest. “I want you to think about this when you’re going to be out there, when you’re going to be on the field. That you think that it doesn’t matter what you can see or do, I’ll always be home waiting for you.”_

_He shouldn’t have said that to him, but he didn’t care much about what was right or wrong. He just wanted the younger to stop feeling alone, because until it would've been in his power, he wasn’t going to leave him._

_He felt his chest become wet, but he pretended not to notice that Ryosuke was crying._

_He held him even tighter, and like he had said his name before, countless times he told him he loved him, until the younger’s ears were full of those words._

_And he truly loved him, and he was going to wait for him forever, had it been necessary._

_He loved him. It didn’t matter how wrong it was._

He had never known if Ryosuke had held on to the thought of him to go on day after day, but he liked to believe it.

When they had brought home his lifeless body, Daiki hadn't been able to cry, not right away.

He had grieved with all the others like a servant should’ve, and he had had to wait too many hours to unleash the pure suffering safe in his room, where no one was going to see him and no one was going to ask the reason behind such inappropriate tears.

He had cried so much.

He had cried, while his mind kept coming up with images of Ryosuke dead, of Ryosuke who wasn’t smiling anymore and was never going to again, of the liquid melting in his eyes now spreading over his body, indelibly staining it in red on the too many wounds he had on.

Ryosuke was dead, and he couldn’t see a reason to live anymore, too many years of his life had been devoted to him only, as a teacher first and as a lover then, and now that...

Daiki was still crying, at night, when he was alone and he could feel nothing but coldness surrounding him, and he didn’t dare to close his eyes to sleep, afraid that the next morning he should’ve started all over again convincing himself that Ryosuke was gone.

He wasn’t born to become a soldier, no matter how much he had desired it when he was a kid.

He had been born to spend his days in peace, serene, with that smile loyal to his lips, without being forced to bend his nature like that for it to cave to the horrors of the battle.

Daiki could only rejoice at the thought that he didn’t have to anymore.

That night, drenched in memories, pleasant and not, he felt as if he had finally reached his breaking point.

He had cried the death of the man he loved, and now that he had run out of tears, all he had was being bound to mortality, which allowed him an easy way out.

He delicately took the katana in his hands, smiling.

It was the first Ryosuke had ever used, and closing his eyes he could still see him happy, his features tensed into a smile, his voice twisted by laughter.

It was with that thought that Daiki had always gone on all that time, he had held on to that even when Ryosuke himself had forgotten about that careless child.

And he wanted to go away with that.

When the sword pierced him there was no pain, only relief.

It was his time, after all.

He had nothing left to pray for, only a million reasons to die quickly.


End file.
